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Reviews Pokémon Legends: Arceus | Review Thread

Pokemaniac said:
Sure, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Legends. They're both spin-offs that take the mainline gameplay in a different direction, but that's about where the similarities end. There are some vague superficial elements they have in common like Pokémon appearing on the overworld and wild battles not being required, but they're so thoroughly different in their approach to these concepts that I don't know why people are comparing them as if there's some sort of progression between them.
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Once again I ask you play Legends and revisit this.
 
After seeing these reviews, I decided to pull trig on the pre-order. Really excited to get back into Pokemon. I have to beat Pikmin 3 and Banjo, then it's time to decide between God of War or Pokemon Legends getting the lion's share of my playtime...

I think God of War, just because it's a narrative experience and I haven't had a good one of those in a while (even Halo Infinite let me down in this department)
 
Seems like the general consensus is that this is the kind of game the series needed, but Game Freak still really needs to get things together on the technical side.
I’m excited to play it this weekend.
 
Hearing how this game is similar to Let’s Go just has me even more hyped. Fuck the haters, Let’s Go is probably my favorite game in the entire series.
 
Let‘s Go had the issue of having to use the Poke Ball Plus and encountering a lot of the same Pokemon over and over again.

I haven’t looked at the leaks besides the new forms and some of the music, so hopefully Legends avoids the latter problem.
 
TheQuietone said:
A streamer that was rushing and barely touched side stuff did it in about 17 hours. So probably around 30 hours or so. Depends on how much you take your time playing.
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Thanks! 30h would be perfect.
 
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Let’s Go in handheld mode didn’t require motion controls. Not allowing the Pro Controller and requiring motion controls docked was a big misstep. I played the whole game handheld and loved every second.
 
Review scores are so weird, especially ones with arbitrary decimals.

I like reviewers who use a five whole point only system to denote 'Amazing', 'Great', 'Good', 'Average', 'Poor'.

Sounds like Legends is a 'Great' game. Congrats everyone. Our decades of complaining has finally born fruit!
 
BlackLotus said:
Review scores are so weird, especially ones with arbitrary decimals.

I like reviewers who use a five whole point only system to denote 'Amazing', 'Great', 'Good', 'Average', 'Poor'.

Sounds like Legends is a 'Great' game. Congrats everyone. Our decades of complaining has finally born fruit!
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Time to take a step backward with Gen 9 /j
 
Amadeus said:
So we can all confirm that Kazumasa Iwao is Game Freak's best director since he directed this game and ultra sun/moon.
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US/UM was honestly the first disappointing game in the series for me and it basically started to get me less invested in the series for a couple of years. I do want to replay it and give the game another chance at some point, though.
 
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Very surprised with these reviews. Pleasantly surprised. I only got Sword because my friend basically begged me to. This one im getting because I’m genuinely curious and excited to get back into Pokémon agin.
 
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bellydrum said:
Legends is very much not a spinoff, it's a mainline game. I'd like to know your reasoning
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A lot of people think its only mainline if it's a gen or a remake of a gen ( gen 1, gen 2 etc.) Everything else is a spin off in their minds. Me personally I don't see it like that but I've been seeing a lot lately in internet discussions.
 
I have a way of thinking about the Zelda series that might be applicable. There are clear side games like Link's Crossbow Training or Tetra's Treasure Trackers, but then there are games like Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask which are clearly mainline games, but also somewhat separate from the core narrative of the series. I refer to these as the "gaiden" games. In the case of Pokemon, Legends Arceus is considered mainline by the developers themselves, so it's hard to argue that it's anything but that, but if you wish to make a distinction between the dual Pokemon League generational releases and Legends, you could consider it a "Gaiden" game/series.
 
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bellydrum said:
Legends is very much not a spinoff, it's a mainline game. I'd like to know your reasoning
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Because it's a very different sort of game from mainline Pokémon games that is trying to do different things, and is missing core elements of the mainline games, like multiplayer battling. Also, we don't yet know where Legends falls on this, but being unable to accept Pokémon from previous mainline games is a hard disqualifying factor for me in the absence of a hard technical barrier, which the series has not had since Gen 3. Generally I view it as part of the mainline-adjacent category of spin-off games, which includes the alternate RPGs (Legends, Let's Go, Colosseum/XD), battle sims, and storage "games"*.

Generally I think since Bank the storage systems have made the transition to full non-game territory, but it was kinda debatable before that.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Because it's a very different sort of game from mainline Pokémon games that is trying to do different things, and is missing core elements of the mainline games, like multiplayer battling. Also, we don't yet know where Legends falls on this, but being unable to accept Pokémon from previous mainline games is a hard disqualifying factor for me in the absence of a hard technical barrier, which the series has not had since Gen 3. Generally I view it as part of the mainline-adjacent category of spin-off games, which includes the alternate RPGs (Legends, Let's Go, Colosseum/XD), battle sims, and storage "games"*.

Generally I think since Bank the storage systems have made the transition to full non-game territory, but it was kinda debatable before that.
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So you also don’t consider BDSP “ mainline” since you cannot transfer Pokémon (yet)?

IMO, Pokémon Legends is to the Pokémon series what Metroid Prime is to the Metroid series. I’d cal it “mainline” and I know that Gamefreak/TPC do.

Edit: Also, the Japanese naming convention makes it obvious that it’s in the “main series”:
 
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Pokemaniac said:
Because it's a very different sort of game from mainline Pokémon games that is trying to do different things, and is missing core elements of the mainline games, like multiplayer battling. Also, we don't yet know where Legends falls on this, but being unable to accept Pokémon from previous mainline games is a hard disqualifying factor for me in the absence of a hard technical barrier, which the series has not had since Gen 3. Generally I view it as part of the mainline-adjacent category of spin-off games, which includes the alternate RPGs (Legends, Let's Go, Colosseum/XD), battle sims, and storage "games"*.

Generally I think since Bank the storage systems have made the transition to full non-game territory, but it was kinda debatable before that.
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Yeah, I guess there's no point in arguing about lol. You make some very good points. I'm purely going off of Game Freak's classification, but the lack of multiplayer battling makes it weird.

As for the inability to accept Pokemon from previous mainline games, I think all mainline games will have a Dex cut moving forward. Unless Sword and Shield have another update in the works, those games still cannot accept all Pokemon from previous games.

But "gens" are weird now, and after Legends: Arceus I think the line is going to start blurring more.
 
ArchedThunder said:
Seems like the general consensus is that this is the kind of game the series needed, but Game Freak still really needs to get things together on the technical side.
I’m excited to play it this weekend.
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One thing I don't get is why Nintendo doesn't just send a couple of their wizards in to help GF out. I mean, I know they're not full owners over the company but the games have a significant impact on Switch sales.

Anyway, everything else sounds amazing for Pokemon players. This is going to be huge.
 
Kreese said:
One thing I don't get is why Nintendo doesn't just send a couple of their wizards in to help GF out. I mean, I know they're not full owners over the company but the games have a significant impact on Switch sales.

Anyway, everything else sounds amazing for Pokemon players.
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I mean, I feel like they don't care enough? Or need to care enough, even

It's not "their" title so they probably don't have the same quality standards (as we've seen with a couple other non-EPD games on Switch) and the games still obviously sell a butt ton of units, which is what ultimately matters to them
 
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Kreese said:
One thing I don't get is why Nintendo doesn't just send a couple of their wizards in to help GF out. I mean, I know they're not full owners over the company but the games have a significant impact on Switch sales.

Anyway, everything else sounds amazing for Pokemon players. This is going to be huge.
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Because they don't have to. To us they should but logically speaking it makes no sense to in the grand scheme of things unless GF asks.
 
Kreese said:
One thing I don't get is why Nintendo doesn't just send a couple of their wizards in to help GF out. I mean, I know they're not full owners over the company but the games have a significant impact on Switch sales.
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Well, it seems like Monolith Soft helped so maybe Nintendo did do this to some extent. Adding more and more assisting staff would have diminishing returns at a certain point, especially for a series as popular as Pokémon, so they probably didn't feel the need to help out too much
 
hologram said:
Well, it seems like Monolith Soft helped so maybe Nintendo did do this to some extent. Adding more and more assisting staff would have diminishing returns at a certain point, especially for a series as popular as Pokémon, so they probably didn't feel the need to help out too much
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Monolith Soft doesn't appear to be listed anywhere in the game's credits, so the claim that they assisted on Legends might be incorrect.
 
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Jbone916 said:
So you also don’t consider BDSP “ mainline” since you cannot transfer Pokémon (yet)?

IMO, Pokémon Legends is to the Pokémon series what Metroid Prime is to the Metroid series. I’d cal it “mainline” and I know that Gamefreak/TPC do.
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There is no reason to think there will be any limits on transferring Pokémon into BDSP once Home support launches beyond which species are in the game. The same cannot be said for Legends.

Though, BDSP is different from previous remakes where it is a pure remake and not really a new game pushing the series forward.
bellydrum said:
Yeah, I guess there's no point in arguing about lol. You make some very good points. I'm purely going off of Game Freak's classification, but the lack of multiplayer battling makes it weird.

As for the inability to accept Pokemon from previous mainline games, I think all mainline games will have a Dex cut moving forward. Unless Sword and Shield have another update in the works, those games still cannot accept all Pokemon from previous games.
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Sword and Shield are most likely going to receive an update when Legends/BDSP Home support launches, because otherwise Game Freak's current strategy doesn't seem particularly coherent. Whether it will include the rest of the Pokémon or just the ones needed for compatibility remains to be seen, but the difference between the two is not particularly large, even just based on the publicly revealed Pokémon for Legends.

Historically, I would have taken a harder line on it actually being every Pokémon, but just accepting any of them is enough (but not sufficient on its own). That said, I do think it's fairly likely the initial pair of games for a generation will eventually have every Pokémon in it by the end of its cycle for the foreseeable future.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Because it's a very different sort of game from mainline Pokémon games that is trying to do different things, and is missing core elements of the mainline games, like multiplayer battling. Also, we don't yet know where Legends falls on this, but being unable to accept Pokémon from previous mainline games is a hard disqualifying factor for me in the absence of a hard technical barrier, which the series has not had since Gen 3. Generally I view it as part of the mainline-adjacent category of spin-off games, which includes the alternate RPGs (Legends, Let's Go, Colosseum/XD), battle sims, and storage "games"*.

Generally I think since Bank the storage systems have made the transition to full non-game territory, but it was kinda debatable before that.
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Legends is mainline, you can think of it as a continuation of Let's Go.
 
Raccoon said:
being on the switch certainly doesn't help
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Well yes, but even John Linneman's rant noted that this is not a Switch problem - there's a lot of room to be better than this. Switch is competent mobile hardware, and Game Freak just isn't prioritizing making the most of it.

Kreese said:
One thing I don't get is why Nintendo doesn't just send a couple of their wizards in to help GF out. I mean, I know they're not full owners over the company but the games have a significant impact on Switch sales.

Anyway, everything else sounds amazing for Pokemon players. This is going to be huge.
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I really don't know the relationship between Nintendo and GF. Given how it seems Nintendo was willing to give Koei Tecmo a tell all run through of how they created the grass in Breath of the Wild for their work on Age of Calamity, I can't imagine they wouldn't do the same for Game Freak.

And whose to say they didn't help here? There's a massive difference between what we're seeing here and what we saw in the Wild Area(s). It's a huge step up - but that's more a testament to how bad the original Wild Area was.
 
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Clov said:
Yep, exactly! It's strange to me that there's those who are choosing to ignore the reality of its mainline status, but The Pokemon Company says otherwise!

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Now that you mention it Clov, I remember this happening with Let's Go at first. I can understand that some people would be less familiar with Pokémon though and wouldn't know that Let's Go and Arceus are mainline games.

But at the end of the day, this is just another connection between Let's Go and Arceus.
 
Clov said:
Yep, exactly! It's strange to me that there's those who are choosing to ignore the reality of its mainline status, but The Pokemon Company says otherwise!

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Brock Reiher said:
Now that you mention it Clov, I remember this happening with Let's Go at first. I can understand that some people would be less familiar with Pokémon though and wouldn't know that Let's Go and Arceus are mainline games.

But at the end of the day, this is just another connection between Let's Go and Arceus.
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I don't think it's a matter of "familiarity", that has a weird elitist air to it.

I think users you've been arguing with have made it clear that it's a personal designation to consider it a spinoff. This is why I stopped arguing about it.
 
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